Thomas Carlyle Quotes
-
Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.
-
Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. It is character which builds an existence out of circumstance. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas; bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect can make them something else.
-
Might and right do differ frightfully from hour to hour, but then centuries to try it in, they are found to be identical.
-
By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.
-
Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable barrier, and the sacred air-cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay hamlets of reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free.
-
He who cannot withal keep his mind to himself cannot practice any considerable thing whatsoever.
-
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do that with all thy might and leave the issues calmly to God.
-
O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim.
-
Stop a moment, cease your work, and look around you.
-
Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles, toilings and sufferings, in this earth.
-
I call that Book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen.
-
The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.
-
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
-
Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.
-
All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!
-
God gave you that gifted tongue of yours, and set it between your teeth, to make known your true meaning to us, not to be rattled like a muffin man's bell.
-
Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to rise above the mind.
-
To be true is manly, chivalrous, Christian; to be false is mean, cowardly, devilish.
-
One monster there is in the world, the idle man.
-
The best lesson which we get from the tragedy of Karbala is that Husain and his companions were rigid believers in God. They illustrated that the numerical superiority does not count when it comes to the truth and the falsehood. The victory of Husain, despite his minority, marvels me!
-
Wonder is the basis of worship.
-
And man's little Life has Duties that are great, that are alone great, and go up to Heaven and down to Hell.
-
To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.
-
Worship is transcendent wonder.